A Second Chance at Love
by Tess H Ross
Summary: D/C. Carol Hathaway gets a second chance to rekindle the love of her life. Please R & R!!!
1. Astonishing News

"Girls, time to go!" Carol Hathaway shouted to her daughters. She walked to the kitchen counter, picking up two brown paper bags as a thundering rumble came from overhead and two identical five-year-olds ran into the room.  
  
"Where's my lunch, Mom?" the one in pink asked.  
  
"And my picture?" chirped the one in purple.  
  
"Your lunch, Tess, and Kate's picture." Carol handed the girls their brown bags and a large roll of paper to Kate.  
  
"Thanks, Mom." They chorused, kissing her cheeks and running out to the school bus. Carol smiled at the two little girls hurrying happily off to school. They were hers entirely. She raised her head. She didn't need a man, like Mama said. She was fine, though her heart gave a little throb as Kate winked at her from the back seat on the bus. They looked like Doug. She missed him, just a little. But she would, of course, never admit that to anyone.  
  
"Time to go." Carol told herself, walking to the car and driving to the hospital she worked at, then stepping into the doctor's lounge.  
  
"Carol?"   
  
Carol looked up from her locker.   
  
"Hey, Mark, come in." Mark came over to where she stood.  
  
"Can I talk to you?" he asked.  
  
"Sure, go ahead." Carol nodded and they sat down on the old worn out couch.  
  
"Last night, a woman came here in heart failure." He announced.  
  
"Mark, who was it? Was it my mom?" Carol asked frantically.  
  
"No, she was Mrs. Ross, Doug Ross's mom." Mark explained. Carol's face grew less hysterical and more somber.  
  
"Is she okay?" she asked.  
  
"She died." He replied gently.  
  
"Oh...." Carol looked away.  
  
"We...Kerry and I...wanted to tell you because I called Doug and he's coming into town." He said. Carol's shoulders slumped.  
  
"He did?" she faltered.  
  
"Yeah, and he talked about seeing you and the girls." Mark added. Carol didn't respond.  
  
"Well, what did you say to him?" she asked somewhat stiffly.  
  
"I said it'd be nice for him to meet them." He replied. "You know it had to happen someday, Carol."  
  
"I know." She nodded, her voice cracking.  
  
"Here, I got you this." Mark put a cup in front of her.  
  
"What the...?" she looked inside it.  
  
"It's a milkshake." Mark smiled gently and Carol did, too, hugging him tightly.  
  
"When is he coming?" Carol asked.  
  
"Um...he's downstairs in the morgue." He replied. "He just came a few minutes ago."  
  
"Mark!" Carol cried.  
  
"Go ahead and take the day off." Mark advised.  
  
"But-"  
  
"It's a Friday, we can spare you." He added, seeing her face.  
  
"But if...when I see him, what do I say?" she asked nervously.  
  
"Anything." He replied. "He's Doug, he's not gonna make a big deal."  
  
"Thanks, Mark." She hugged him again and walked out, just missing a tall man with gentle eyes and now graying hair who was searching intently for her. 


	2. A Surprise Visitor

"So, what are you going to do?" Susan was asking Carol later that day over the phone.  
  
"I don't know." Carol replied, wiping a dish and placing it on the stack. "Let him see them, I guess."  
  
"Did you ever tell him?" Susan's voice was deeply intrigued, as if she found Carol's life fascinating.  
  
"Yeah, of course I did." She answered. "And what's it to you, am I the hospital Soap Opera?"  
  
"Come on, you've been the hospital Soap Opera since you committed with Doug Ross for the first time." Susan chided and Carol laughed.  
  
"Wait, there goes my phone." Carol clicked over to the other line. "Hello?"  
  
"Carol, it's me."  
  
"Hello, Mama." Carol sighed a bit.  
  
"I haven't talked to you in two days, are you sick? How are my granddaughters?"  
  
"Mama, I'm just fine, the girls are great."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Mama, I've got a friend on the other line-"  
  
"Is it Luka?"  
  
"No, he went back to Vukovar. I've really got to get back-"  
  
"Who is it?"  
  
"It's Dr. Lewis, from the hospital."  
  
"Alright, I'll call later."  
  
"'Bye, Mama." Carol clicked back to the other line. "Sorry about that, Susan."  
  
"Who was it?" Susan said.  
  
"My mom." She resumed cleaning her plates. "We haven't talked in a few days, she was worried."  
  
"Thank God my mother isn't like that." She answered as Carol's ancient doorbell chimed through the house.  
  
"Shit." Carol muttered.  
  
"What?" asked Susan.  
  
"Well, there's a crack in one of my plates, and someone's at the door." Carol responded.  
  
"Go get the door, I'll talk to you tomorrow."  
  
"'Bye, Susan."   
  
"'Bye, Carol. Watch out for salesmen." Carol hung up and walked to the door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel as she opened the heavy oak door. A tall man stood on her porch, one hand shoved in the pocket of his jeans and the other scratching the back of his graying hair. He jumped to attention as she appeared, forcing his hands further down his pockets.  
  
"Doug," Carol murmured, not opening the screen door that separated the two. 


	3. Revealing the Truth

"Hi, Carol." Doug said quietly, smiling a little.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Carol asked.  
  
"I was in town." He replied.  
  
"Yeah, Mark told me." she nodded. "Would you like to come in?"  
  
"Thanks." She opened the door and he walked inside. "You got a screen."  
  
"The girls kept leaving the door open and the bugs would fly in." she explained.  
  
"Where are they?" asked Doug.  
  
"The girls?" He nodded. "School. They'll be home soon, do you want something to drink? Coffee?"  
  
"Sure." Doug sat at the kitchen table.  
  
"Mark told me about your mom." Carol handed him his cup of coffee, their hands brushing, sending a small spark of electricity through them both. "I'm sorry...she was a nice woman."  
  
"Yeah...she was." He took a long sip of the black liquid.  
  
"What are you going to do?" Carol asked, sitting across from him with her own cup.  
  
"Bury her here and go back home, I guess." He sighed. "I wanted to by and see the girls." He hesitated, then added, "And you." Silence settled over them for a few minutes.  
  
"I think I've got some stuff of yours, let me go get it." Carol walked upstairs and took a box labeled "Doug's Stuff" from the top shelf of her closet, carrying it downstairs.  
  
"Here." She put it on the table between them.  
  
"Let me see...." Doug began pawing through the box, sending the old scent of his cologne through the room.  
  
"I've been looking for this." He tossed an old, grimy baseball into the air. "And this." Carol took the ball from him as he tugged an old gray sweater over his head.  
  
"What's this?" Carol pointed to a brown package with rubber bands stretched across it."  
  
"I don't know." Doug pulled off the bands and paper. "Aha, look at these." Carol leaned over and watched him flip through a pile of photographs.  
  
"Did you ever see Dr. Benton smile?" Carol laughed as a picture of a gruff black man came to the top of the pile.  
  
"Nope, never." Doug replied. "Look at Mark, with his hair." They both laughed.  
  
"What's that?" Carol pointed to a small black box in one corner.  
  
"Uh...."Doug picked it up and spun it around in his hand. "That would be your ring." He cracked the box open to reveal a small diamond ring. Carol's breath caught in her throat. He had bought a ring?  
  
"Mommy!"  
  
"That's them." Carol said, and they stood, waiting for their daughters.  
  
"Mommy, look what I made!" Kate forced a necklace made of hard noodles into Carol's hand.  
  
"It's beautiful, sweetie." Carol leaned down and kissed her forehead.  
  
"Who's that, Mommy?" Tess asked, clinging to Carol's hand and pointing to Doug.  
  
"Girls, we have something very important to tell you." Carol picked the twins up one at a time, setting them on the counter in front of her. "Remember how I told you your Daddy lived a ways away and that was why you couldn't see him?"  
  
"Uh-huh." They chorused.  
  
"Well...this is your Daddy." Carol nodded to Doug, who stepped forward. "His name's Doug."  
  
"Hi, girls." Doug smiled awkwardly.  
  
"Is he really our daddy?" Tess asked. Carol nodded.  
  
"Are you going to stay?" asked Kate.  
  
"Well...." His voice drifted off and Carol sighed a bit.  
  
"We'll see, okay, girlies?" she hugged them tightly, not knowing what to say.  
  
"You wanna see our room?" Kate asked Doug.  
  
"That sounds like fun." Doug smiled.  
  
"Can we call you Daddy?" Tess said.  
  
"If that's okay with your Mom." He replied, looking at Carol.  
  
"Go ahead." She nodded.  
  
"OK, Daddy." Tess grinned. They both took his hands, pulling him up to their room. 


	4. Confession

"So, they're really getting along?" Mark asked.  
  
"Yeah, the girls are in love with him." Carol switched the phone from one ear to the other. "They're all at the park right now."  
  
"At least they don't hate him."  
  
"Gee, thanks, Mark."  
  
"How are you two getting along? You and Doug?"  
  
"We're okay. He got a box of his stuff he left...did you know he had a ring?"  
  
"What do you mean, a ring?"  
  
"A wedding ring."  
  
"You saw that?"  
  
"You knew about it?"  
  
"I wasn't going to tell you, it wasn't my place."  
  
"Mommy, we're home!" Little feet were heard through the hall.  
  
"They're home, I've got to go."  
  
"Alright, Carol, I'll see you tomorrow." Carol hung up the phone and walked to the front porch.  
  
"Take off your boots, Kate." She told the youngest girl. "Did you three have fun?"  
  
"Yeah!" Tess cried. "We swung."  
  
"And we see-sawed." Kate chimed in.  
  
"Go wash up for dinner." She told them, and the two marched to the washroom, leaving Carol alone with Doug.  
  
"I'm gonna go over to my hotel." Doug stepped off the porch. "I'll call tomorrow after the funeral."  
  
"Doug." Carol stopped him. "Why don't you stay for dinner?"  
  
"Are you sure?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah...." She nodded. "I mean, it's just macaroni, not much, but...for old times' sake, in the least."  
  
"Alright." Doug smiled sincerely and walked back inside.  
  
Later that night, after Kate and Tess had gone to bed, Carol and Doug sat on the couch, looking over old photos and talking quietly, their old camaraderie returned in full.  
  
"The Fourth of July baseball game." Doug chuckled. "Remember the fireworks?"  
  
"I remember you losing the game." Carol retorted.  
  
"I did not lose!" he cried.  
  
"You did too, you dropped the ball." She laughed. "And Susan." Carol pointed to a young Susan Lewis making a face at the camera.  
  
"She's back at the hospital, from what I heard." Doug said.  
  
"Yeah, she came back after her sister moved...that was about two years ago." She nodded.  
  
"Oh, look at this...." Doug laughed, holding up a particularly naughty picture of Carol on their old bed.  
  
"Oh, my God, give me those!" Carol snatched at the pictures.  
  
"No way!" Doug held them high above her head. "These are my pictures, I keep them."  
  
"Doug!" she shrieked. He stood and ran around the downstairs, the pictures clutched in his hand, Carol following him closely. He stopped short in the hallway and she bumped into him, crashing onto the floor with a thump, their faces mere inches from each other. Carol felt his hot breath on her neck, where she had felt it so many times before, and a shiver went through her again. She quickly got off of the floor, shaking her hair back and dusting off her clothes.  
  
"Sorry about that." Doug smiled wickedly, holding out the photos.  
  
"Burn these." She said, shoving them back into his hands.  
  
"You start the fire." He replied and she cracked a small smile. Minutes later, a small fire was crackling in the living room as the two crouched in front of it, feeding it with the dirty pictures.  
  
"So, how have you been since we last saw each other?" Carol asked, grimacing at a photo and tossing it in.  
  
"Fine, just fine." Doug said. "I got a job at a children's hospital downtown. Bought a nice house."  
  
"A house?" Carol raised her eyebrows. "Not just an apartment or something?"  
  
"Well, I...you see, I met this woman in Seattle, Jessie." Doug cleared his throat nervously. "And we got married."  
  
"Married?" Carol raised her eyebrows.  
  
"Yeah." He nodded.  
  
"The Great Douglas Ross settled down and had a family?" she asked incredulously.  
  
"For a little while." Doug replied. "We divorced eight months after."  
  
"Eight months?" Carol's eyebrows went even higher. "That's all it lasted?"  
  
"You know me and my relationships." He smiled a little.  
  
"Why'd you end it?" she asked.  
  
"Same reason I ended all the others." He shrugged. "I got bored, wasn't interested, and ended it."  
  
"Is that why you ended ours? The first time?" she tilted her head to one side.  
  
"No." he shook his head.  
  
"Then why?"  
  
"I was...in awe of you." He said, his voice dropping. "You were so...I just didn't want to get involved, I didn't want to hurt you." Carol smiled a bit.  
  
"Guess that didn't work out so well, hmm?" She said quietly, trying not to let sarcasm invade her voice.  
  
"Guess not." He shook his head. "I'm going. I'll call tomorrow." Doug leaned over and gently kissed her cheek, his lips barely brushing her soft skin, just enough to send a small patter through her heart that she quickly forced to stop.  
  
"Goodnight." She said, as he opened the door.  
  
"Goodnight." He replied, walking out. 


End file.
